Advance Review: Doctor Strange Nexus of Nightmare #1 One-Shot

Marvel’s love of everything Ol’ Timers takes a Strange turn this week as Marvel veteran Ralph Machio brings the wielder of the Crimson Bands of Cyyttorak, Doctor Stephen Strange back from the dead, for a one-shot at least.

Baron Mordo seeks the discorporate, disheveling, distracting darkness of Nightmare in order to weaken Strange and hopefully will see Mordo gain his true prize; the dreaded Darkhold!

Marvel have recently been taking an old school approach to a number of books; be it Symbiote Spider-Man or the Silver Surfer Thanos team-up. With a new movie due out, and with the good doctor being somewhat missing of late, now seems a perfect time to bring Stephen back into the fold. Ralph Machio provides a story that is heavy on the details, heavy on the dialogue and pretty much feels like a comic from 30 years ago. Gone is the current trend of humour uber alles and in its place a tell not show type of speech pattern. I can understand if the aim is to gain new readers, or maybe sway movie goers into buying a comic. But for long time readers, who, whether publishers and retailers like it or not, make up the majority of the comic buying public it might just seem a tad heavy handed and lack an even flow. Story wise it’s quite basic, if a touch Knightfall-esque. Thankfully there is no Az-Strange waiting in the wings.

The art is supplied by Ibrahim Moustafa who recently appeared on the Outside the Panels (click here to listen), discussing his Humaniods book, Retroactive. This book then is a totally different beast, though Mustafa’s realistic pencils may seems an oxymoronic choice the truth is the books looks great. True, there is a sort of nearly photo-realism to the pencils, but that is geared around the faces. Bearing in mind I have seen his previous work, I am totally impressed at Moustafa’s magic stylings as well as the flashback sequence. Great work! Colorist Neeraj Menon also puts in a shifts with a scheme that is as varied as the environs Strange finds himself in. VC’s Cory Petit also gets to have a lot of fun with different fonts, again matching the various situations on show.

I really like the current Strange book; Clea has been a bit of a favourite of mine, throw in the fact she is currently written by form Black Cat writer Jed MacKay. This then feels like a step backwards of sorts. I am certain that the traditional Strange fans may well like this. For me however, the art of Moustafa saves the day.

Writing- 3 Stars

Art – 4 Stars

Colors – 4 Stara

Overall – 3.5 Stars

Written by; Ralph Machio
Art by; Ibrahim Moustafa
Colors by; Neeraj Menon
Letters by; VC’s Cory Petit
Published by; Marvel Worldwide Inc.

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network